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"A member of the Federal National Council on Tuesday demanded that the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) apply more scrutiny to the market to eliminate illegal trades.

Ahmad Mohammad Al Shamsi, a member from Ajman, told the House that it was extremely crucial that all companies maintain the credibility needed to put the UAE on a firm footing to attract international investment.

“Small investors have suffered great losses recently as UAE-listed firms make sharp movements up and down the stock market for no apparent reason,” Al Shamsi said."

"Getting caught up in a war zone ranks among the worst-case scenarios for an oil company. This has happened to Royal Dutch Shell in eastern Ukraine, where heavy fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian military forces continues.

Shell has a hydrocarbons production-sharing agreement at the 8,000 sq km Yuzivska field, which lies across Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. A map of the field shows it covers Slovyansk, the heart of the pro-Russian military uprising.

Such proximity has affected Shell’s Ukraine operations, but only up to a point, according to the company. Simon Henry, Chief Financial Officer said on Bloomberg TV in early June that the oil giant is taking “time out on the actual drilling activity on the ground”, for security reasons.

The main Dubai stocks index has fallen 25% since hitting a multi-year high early May.

Zawya.com

If, like many people, you have not paid much attention to the market in Dubai since theDubai World crisis, then you can be forgiven for wondering what on earth happened over there Tuesday.

Dubai’s stock index fell by 8.5% at one point. (On which, more here.) The plunge was amplified by a sharp lurch lower in the Arabtec Holding stock that triggered forced selling in other local shares. All told, the country’s index has fallen by a whacking 25% in less than two months, making this a classic bear market.

Dubai’s property market could be another bubble in the making, London-based Capital Economics said. Chart-watching technical strategists such as Shiv Prakash at NBAD Securities are also downbeat, looking for further stocks weakness.

Panic stations? Not quite.

The market, despite the tumble, is still up some 19% for the year. It rallied by 108% in the previous 12-month period, hitting multi-year highs a month ago, and overall sentiment remains upbeat.

The relatively positive backdrop persists because the outlook for Dubai hasn’t changed much: Its economy continues to grow on the back of strengthening trade and tourism, and its mainstay property market – which was sunk by the global financial crisis – hasrebounded.

Its winning bid to host the World Expo in 2020 helps, and in addition, the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, was promoted to emerging market status by index compiler MSCI in May, drawing in funds.

Fahd Iqbal, the head of Middle East research for private banking at Credit Suisse, reckons a correction was overdue. “Valuations were already very over-extended and let’s not forget that historically markets tend to underperform in the 12 months subsequent to being upgraded by MSCI,” he said.

“Overall I think the bulk of the decline in Dubai is now behind us. Forward price/earnings ratios are more attractive than they were before and Dubai is now trading in line with MSCI World, compared to a 35% premium at the peak,” Mr. Iqbal said, noting “the long term outlook for the U.A.E. remains attractive and supported by an ongoing earnings recovery which is still very much in its early stages.”

In the near term though, the Dubai market could remain under pressure. As one trader said Tuesday, “don’t try and catch this falling knife.” After all, investors usually stay away during the summer months and the holy month of Ramadan, which starts in a few days.

Iraq's economy depends on its oil production. The country produces 3.3 million barrels per day and has the world's fourth largest oil reserves. According to OPEC, it has reserves of more than 140 billion barrels in oil fields in the north east and south east of the country. Militants from a group called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, are waging an offensive that have seen vast swaths of northern Iraq fall out of government hands. ISIS, an al Qaeda splinter group, wants to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, that would stretch from Iraq into northern Syria. Extremist militants have overrun Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. In recent weeks, they've wrested control of Iraqi cities like Falluja and parts of Ramadi from authorities, just as they've done with Syrian towns over the border. Click through the map to discover more.

Map data supplied by Platts, a provider of energy, metals and petrochemicals information. This map may not work on all mobile devices.

"Russian shares leapt to a five-month high on Tuesday after President Vladimir Putin asked the upper house of parliament to revoke Russia's right to send troops to Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting troops loyal to Kiev.

The index was up more than 2.5 percent on Monday's close by 2:14 p.m., surpassing 1,400 points for the first time since mid-January. The ruble was up 0.7 percent against the dollar from the previous close."

"Qatar’s economy is likely to grow 6.3 percent this year, much faster than previously expected and well ahead of other oil exporting Gulf states, helped by robust domestic demand, a report showed on Tuesday.

Gross domestic product growth in the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas is forecast to hit 7.8 percent in 2015, its fastest rate since 2011, said the report of the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics. It was 6.5 percent in 2013.

“Although receding hydrocarbon output is seen checking overall growth in 2014, with the commissioning of the Barzan gas project in 2015 a step increase in gas output is expected, taking aggregate growth higher,” the ministry said. "

The DFM General Index fell 6.7 percent, the most since August, to 4,009.01 at the close in the emirate as 12 stocks lost more than 9 percent, amid speculation leveraged traders are liquidating positions. The index entered a bear market yesterday after falling 20 percent from a May 6 peak. Arabtec dropped 9.8 percent to the lowest since January after the company confirmed it cut staff.

“Selling pressure on Arabtec is causing margin calls on retail investor accounts, hence the big move down across the U.A.E. as a whole,” Nayal Khan, head of institutional sales and trading at the Naeem Holding brokerage in Dubai, said by e-mail."

"Norway’s $880 billion wealth fund, the world’s largest, will expand its scope of investments to target “frontier markets” and add more currencies to generate higher returns.

The fund will broaden its “exposure to different sources of return and seek to exploit time-varying investment opportunities,” Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages the fund, said in a strategy report published today. NBIM expects to invest 1 percent of the fund in private real estate in each of the next three years, it said.

“New frontier markets will be added to our equity investments, and the scope of our fixed-income investments will be widened to include additional currencies,” NBIM said in the report, which sets its strategy through 2016."

"Well, we did ask. That’s the Dubai bourse down almost 8 per cent at pixel time…

Chart via Reuters. The culprit: Arabtec, down 10 per cent, and 6 per cent of the index. One of the Middle East’s largest construction companies (market cap $3.7bn, still) appears to be suddenly rather light on executives.

Oh and Arabtec shares had risen 250 per cent this year until early May.

"Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB, laid bare the economic damage being inflicted by the Ukraine crisis, missing forecasts with a 98-percent plunge in first-quarter net profit as it set aside more money to cover potential bad loans.

Russian banks have been increasing their provisions against potential loan defaults for some time as economic growth slowed.

But the country’s economy is now flirting with recession, hurt by tensions between Russia and Ukraine that prompted the West to impose sanctions against some Russian individuals and entities, as well as an outflow of capital and falls in Russia’s currency and stock markets."

"Iraq’s Kurds have succeeded tactically in boosting their economic and political leverage to help them achieve greater independence.

Since the country’s second biggest city, Mosul, fell on June 10 to militant groups, the Kurdish leadership has worked quickly and systematically to advance its interests as Sunni and Shiite politicians squabble over how to retake the city.

One of the key elements for Kurdish success is the sale on international markets of oil produced in the Kurdish region of Iraq."

"Qatari property developer Barwa Real Estate said on Monday it was selling its 95 per cent stake in Barwa Commercial Avenue Co to the property arm of the country’s sovereign wealth fund for 9 billion riyals ($2.5 billion; Dh9.07 billion). The deal is part of an agreement by Barwa to sell assets worth a total of $7.1 billion (Dh26.07 billion) to Qatari Diar, which was originally announced in June last year. The stake will be sold to Labregah Real Estate Co, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qatari Diar, the developer said in a statement on Qatar’s bourse."

"The worsening conflict in Iraq poses a bigger risk to long-term oil prices than traders anticipate, according to banks from Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp.

Brent crude contracts for December 2018 cost $15.26 a barrel less than August, a spread that’s widened by 9.9 percent since the end of May. Violence in Iraq is the biggest risk to new supply this decade from any nation in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the International Energy Agency said June 13.

While fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant have seized cities north of Baghdad, the majority of oil assets are in the south and east. Still, having the al-Qaeda splinter group within miles of the nation’s capital threatens to derail plans to increase production."

"The selloff that ended Dubai’s (DFMGI) biggest bull market since 2005 is opening doors for long-term investors, according to Schroders Plc.

“The market is now starting to offer very good entry points,” Dubai-based Rami Sidani, who oversees the $343 million Schroders International Selection Fund, said by telephone yesterday. “Smart money and international investors” who missed Dubai’s rally have stayed on the sidelines and will now jump in, he said.

The DFM General Index entered a bear market yesterday after falling 20 percent from a high on May 6. The drop has been led by real-estate stocks including Arabtec Holding Co. (ARTC), which has tumbled as the second-biggest shareholder cut its stake, the chief executive officer resigned and the company dismissed staff.